Reports this week have once again shed light on President Trump’s continued efforts to get US troops out of the middle east and away from conflicts pursued by his predecessors.
A report by NBC news notes that Trump “complains almost daily” that US troops are still in Afghanistan, and that now they are at risk from the coronavirus outbreak.
“His renewed push to withdraw all of them has been spurred by the convergence of his concern that coronavirus poses a force protection issue for thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and his impatience with the halting progress of his peace deal with the Taliban,” officials have told NBC.
“U.S. officials worry the virus could become rampant in Afghanistan, given its lack of health care and testing and its shared border with Iran, which has been hit hard by the pandemic.” the report adds.
“Afghanistan is going to have a significant coronavirus issue,” a former senior U.S. official said. “It hasn’t really manifested yet but it will.”
As highlighted in other reports, Afghanistan’s relatively substandard health ministry is preparing to be overrun by “millions” of coronavirus cases.
Israel will be asking for double the usual amount of funding due to coronavirus. Harrison asks, “Why are we even funding Israel?”
According to the NBC report, Trump isn’t happy with the progress of US and NATO troops being withdrawn from the country, which was part of a deal signed with the Taliban in February.
The accord paved the way for a large US troop reduction to 8,600 within 135 days of signing, numbers that are not being achieved quickly enough for Trump.
The report notes that military advisors are worried that troops will also have to be be withdrawn from elsewhere if they’re brought home from Afghanistan.
“The president’s military advisers have made the case to him that if the U.S. pulls troops out of Afghanistan because of the coronavirus, by that standard the Pentagon would also have to withdraw from places like Italy, which has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, officials said.”
It’s difficult to imagine that Trump would have much of a problem with that either.
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